As attention turns to relationships
this time of year, for some Native American women, the reality of
their lives is less than loving.

According to U.S. Department of
Justice statistics, Native American women are victims of domestic
violence or physical assault at more than double the rate of other
racial group. An estimated one in three Native American women are
assaulted or raped in their lifetimes and three out of five
experience domestic violence.

The White House proclaimed January
National Stalking Awareness Month and the U.S. Department of
Education declared the same month as National Human Trafficking
Awareness Month. Both issues have an impact on Native women on and
off the reservation. But for one women's advocate in the Twin Cities,
the goal is to heal the root of the problems through traditional
methods, addressing historical trauma.

Nancy Bordeaux ran away from the
Rosebud Reservation in 1986, escaping an abusive husband who nearly
took her life. She was 27 years-old when she started over in
Minneapolis. There she met other Native people, refugees of
government relocations programs and women like her. There were a lot
of women like her; while Bordeaux’s circumstance was tragic it was,
unfortunately, not uncommon. Nor is it uncommon now.

Bordeaux found work keeping books for
the Mdewakantowan Dakota’s casino operations in Prior Lake, Minn.
She established a peaceful home, but was unhappy in her professional
life, counting money for the tribe. She wanted to help women seeking
to put their lives back together after leaving abusive relationships.

After several attempts Bordeaux
thought she had found a job doing just that when she was hired by the
Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. They put her to work,
however, on Indian child welfare cases. Bordeaux’s duties included
entering people’s homes, alongside county child protection agents,
to investigate reported maltreatment of Indian children. “That’s
when I started learning about the institutional racism that exists
within the American system of justice,” she said.

The job, she says, started to eat her
alive. “They were opening cases against Indian parents when they
shouldn’t have, removing children from homes, transferring them
into the care of non-Indian people. I no longer wanted to work for a
system that perpetuated genocide – the forced removal and transfer
of children from one ethnic group to another.”

After the realization that she
“couldn’t continue to exist as if I was an assimilated Indian
living in the city,” Bordeaux returned to the Rosebud Reservation
where she sought help and healing among traditional spiritual people.
“Looking back, I realize that the most powerful thing I did to help
my people was return to our ceremonies,” she said.

Today, the 56 year-old Sicangu Lakota
says she is optimistic about the futures of many of the women she’s
helped through her work in women's advocacy. Bordeaux feels some
satisfaction knowing that the extensive networking she’s done seems
to be having an impact at the national level.

At the urging of Attorney General Eric
Holder, congress passed the 288-page reauthorization of the Violence
Against Women Act last month, which included language proposed by the
Justice Department that for the first time would allow tribal courts
to prosecute non-Indians who assaulted native women on tribal lands.
It would also allow the courts to issue and enforce protective
orders, whether the perpetrator is Indian or non-Indian.

While Bordeaux welcomes the tightening
of laws to aid in the prosecution of abusers, she is focused on
healing the victims. Over the course of her career she has come to
see that no law can mend the flesh, bones and psyche of Native women
who survive assault. There is only one thing that can accomplish
that, she says – a return to traditional spiritual ways, a practice
that will not only heal the present generations, but future
generations as well.

“I think that decriminalizing
recreational use would benefit our people greatly since so many of us
use it and many have been incarcerated for possessing it. The tribes
certainly could gain by better controlling how it exists within our
communities as well as financially with sales and possible taxation …
We have retained aboriginal rights to utilize medicines within our
communities the way we see fit.”

Martin Reinhardt, Professor at Northern
Michigan University

It’s time to reconsider the
regulation of marijuana and hemp. With the Pineole Pomo Tribe of
California initiating the first tribal commercial marijuana grow
operation and the Department of Justice’s announcement that it
would not prosecute for marijuana or hemp, the door has been opened
to look at the regulatory scheme. This December, Justice Department
Director Monty Wilkinson announced, “The eight priorities in the
Cole memorandum will guide United States Attorneys' marijuana
enforcement efforts in Indian Country, including in the event that
sovereign Indian nations seek to legalize the cultivation or use of
marijuana in Indian Country.”

In turn, the Pomo tribe, which is
located in Mendicino County, one of the largest marijuana growing
counties in the country, announced a commercial venture with two
partners, Colorado-based United Cannabis and Kansas-based FoxBarry
Farms. The 250-member tribe announced that it will grow thousands of
plants for the medical marijuana business on its 99-acre reservation.

What’s the catch? There are a lot of
them, especially in any states which have not yet legalized
marijuana. U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole, for instance,
said that the DOJ will retain the right to prosecute individuals who
engage in the distribution of marijuana to minors, where revenue is
going to criminal enterprises, drugged driving or diversion to a
state where it is not legal.

While some tribes are looking to this
as a highly lucrative business, others are considering just the local
economics and pros and cons of the industry. In the least on the
cautious side, tribal police are already pretty busy and under
funded, so the keeping of marijuana to within reservation borders,
may be a bit of a challenge for any regulatory authority. And that “
Driving While Indian” thing that occurs when you leave the
reservation boundaries is, well, going to be supremely tested if
tribes go ahead. There is, not an easy path in any case.

The Economics

I am told that 40 percent of my
community smokes the herb. The fact is we’re spending millions of
dollars a year importing marijuana from, largely unsavory characters
onto the reservation, creating a great loss to our tribal economy.
This is undeniable in every reservation. I haven't done complete
studies, but in order to buy marijuana from dealers elsewhere,
conservative estimates indicate $60,000 a week is draining from the
my own reservation, White Earth. With a little math, it looks like
around $3 million annually is drained from the reservation for
purchases.

That is coming out of tribal pockets;
pockets in some of the poorest counties in the state. That is part of
our challenge. Could tribes stop that economic drain with a local
marijuana economy? There are some larger economic benefits, for both
hemp or marijuana, as well as risks.

Hemp Economics

Over 30 nations grow industrial hemp
today, including Canada, France, England, Russia, China, Germany and
Australia. China is the largest producer of industrial hemp. On the
other side, the U.S.is the largest consumer of hemp products, with
total annual retail sales in 2013 of $580 million. Between 60 and 90
percent of the raw hemp materials imported into the U.S. come from
Canada, which legalized hemp production in 1998.

This is some old stuff. The
Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper. I don’t know
if our treaties were written on hemp paper, but it's possible. Both
the Navajo Nation and the Oglala Sioux Council passed ordinances and
resolutions on hemp. But at that time, the Drug Enforcement Agency
came down with a heavy hand – particularly on the White Plume
Tiospaye in Pine Ridge – which grew 0 percent THC hemp, from 2000
to 2002, on their family allotments.

That crop had been legalized by the
Oglala Sioux Tribe, however, in all three years, the crops were
raided by DEA SWAT teams destroying thousands of dollars worth of
seed. Federal prosecutions were extensive, but the family escaped
imprisonment, but was barred from any more hemp farming. Ironically,
the raids had dispersed seed throughout their land and the crops
remain today, although the family is barred from harvest. That was
then, it’s not clear what that means in light of the change in
Justice Department policy.

Marijuana Math

Tribal communities would be unable,
under the present regulatory scheme, to sell marijuana
off-reservation unless the surrounding state legalized marijuana.
This is the case of the Pomo, or a tribe in any state with medical or
recreational use. The licensing issue is not clear as of yet, but
when the state of Minnesota held its informational meeting on the new
medical marijuana policy, regulatory officials stated that tribal
sovereignty would dictate growing in that state, but no word on
distribution or sales off-reservation. This is likely to be
determined in the upcoming year. The question of a local tribal
economy in marijuana, however is worth some considering.

The Marijuana economy, however, is a
robust deal in Colorado. The state of Colorado is likely to haul in
around $43 million this year from marijuana taxes. That is a 27
percent tax on marijuana and that’s taxes, not business. It’s got
a huge ripple through the economy for sure, from growers to
hydroponic suppliers to bakers. Colorado is sort of unique in its
situation and demographics, but it's a booming industry.

RED LAKE, Minn. – Although the
subject was not on the printed agenda for the Red Lake Tribal Council
at the regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Jan. 13, recent acts by
the federal government concerning Indian tribes, hemp and marijuana
prompted several tribes to explore the feasibility of growing medical
marijuana and industrial hemp.

Red Lake Chairman Darrell G. Seki,
Sr., added the agenda item shortly after the call to order. He said
he felt the federal ruling should at least be discussed. Seki cited
several tribes that are looking deeper into the issue and mentioned
fewer yet that were actually taking action.

Immediately, Red Lake citizen and
Gardening Tech at Red Lake Traditional Foods David Manuel asked to
address those assembled and spoke of the economic advantages to
getting involved with at least industrial hemp and possibly medical
marijuana. “Give me one of those three green houses near the
elementary school for a year and I'll give you five million dollars,"
Manuel said. He offered no plan nor statistics for that claim.

Nearly everyone on the 11-member
tribal council weighed in, including several chiefs and Red Lake
members seated in the audience. Discussion ran the gamut from
favorable to cautionary for both industrial hemp and medicinal
marijuana.

Council member Roman Stately said
toward the end of the discussion, that he "knew very little
about either hemp or marijuana. We need a feasibility study. Lets
learn about it.” Several council members and citizens agreed that
they just were unfamiliar with the issue and that the tribe should
explore the matter from a legal, economic and other issues
surrounding the federal memo.

It was then moved and seconded, then
passed unanimously to direct Red Lake Economic Development and Legal
Departments to conduct a feasibility study and fact-finding mission
on the issue and report back to council at an unspecified time.

Seki emphasized that whatever the
outcome, no resolutions or tribal laws will be enacted without
consultation with the membership both in informational meetings and
eventually in a referendum … a vote of the entire nation. “Whatever
we do, it will be done very carefully,” he said.

Seki, who holds informational and
brainstorming sessions in each of the four Red Lake communities from
time to time, said that for the next series of community meetings
will be conducted over a two week period in February, that he will
add the issue to the agenda and encouraged all Red Lake members to
participate in that and all issues of concern to the tribe.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Red Lake Tribal
Chairman Darrell G. Seki, Sr., and Treasurer Annette Johson, along
with others met with members of the Minnesota Congressional
delegation on Jan. 28 in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of
issues of concern to the Red Lake Band.

Red Lake's lack of criminal
jurisdiction over non-band members was the primary focus of the
visits with the Congressional delegates. Tribal officials said they
would like to have jurisdiction to prosecute non-members who bring
drugs onto the Red Lake Reservation.

“All Congressmen were shocked to
hear of our troubles with drug dealers and were very responsive to
the Band's issues that were raised,” tribal spokespersons said.
"Sen. Amy Klobuchar even suggested that a tribal summit – to
include all of Minnesota's eleven tribes – would be in order, to
discuss this and other topics of mutual concern to Indian Nations."

Seki and Johnson also met with the
Bureau of Indian Affairs Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn
(Chickasaw) about the BIA's push to move funding from "one time
funding" to a grant-based approach, a move that the Red Lake
Band strongly opposes.

Other issues addressed by the Red Lake
delegation included Red Lake's concern regarding insufficient funding
for tribal roads, specifically the calculation formulas used by the
federal government which allow tribes with smaller land bases to
receive equal or even more funding. The Enbridge Pipeline was also
discussed.

It’s a good time to be a foodie.
There are lots of food happenings around town, you just need to know
where to look. Dinner on the Farm is a good place to start.

During the summer, Dinner on the Farm
hosts chef-planned and prepared dinners on farms. They are fun
family-friendly events that also often include good, local beer or
wine. There’s special pricing for kids so please don’t tell the
organizers, but I have seen my kid eat her weight in beef then wash
is down with a gallon of strawberries and cream as she chases cows in
the field at these events. The dinners are summer highlights. It’s
a fun way to learn about a local farm (local may mean up to two hours
from the Twin Cities), an emerging chef and often local breweries or
other specialty food producers are included. The only way to find out
about them is sign up. (Pssst – signing up is free!)

During the winter, Dinner on the Farm
hosts Underground Dinner Parties – in art galleries, breweries,
Tiki rooms, haunted houses and other fun places. These are less
family friendly as they often have a higher level of alcohol content;
they also involve a lot less driving. It’s a fun way to meet other
foodies. (Be warned it’s not a place to pick up foodies since
mingling is minimal and most folks come in groups but with a little
effort and sometimes wine you get to meet the most interesting
people!)

This last weekend the underground
dinner turned to brunch at the Dogwood Coffee Roastery. I heard the
coffee was amazing. I’m not a coffee drinker but I was introduced
to Spruce Soda Ginger Beer drinker. I have been looking for something
to replace Diet Coke; this is on the shortlist. It’s sweet but not
syrupy or sugary. And it’s all natural.

The brunch included dry salamis from
Red Table. I will forego bacon with brunch any and every there’s
dry meats from Red Table on the buffet. Rise provided the bagels;
they feature only locally grown and organic ingredients. Soft on the
inside, a bite on the outside. Holds spreads and jams well!

He will be remembered as a man who was
as generous with his time and spiritual teachings. Mesteth served his
people in every possible way. Those who are mourning his passing are
remembering his guidance, direction and leadership.

According to his daughter Rachel,
Mesteth underwent surgery for a double hernia on Jan. 8 and was
recovering at the Prairie Winds Hotel in Pine Ridge, S.D.. In the
afternoon, he was visiting with his adopted brothers when he called
his wife with concerns that he was having a heart attack.

Mesteth lived in the Cheyenne Creek
community and was married to Lisa Mesteth. He taught at Oglala Lakota
College for over 20 years, where he was a cultural instructor. He
taught traditional songs, dance, traditional herbs and foods,
language and history. OLC student Lilly Jones said about Mesteth, “He
treated everyone the same. Whether it was a Hollywood film crew or a
student, he was always so respectful and humble.”

Mesteth also participated in the Big
Foot Rides and the Crazy Horse Rides, and supported the Northern
Cheyenne Fort Robinson Run.

Two night wake services were held on
Jan. 21 at the Lakota Dome, Prairie Wind Casino, Pine Ridge, S.D.,
and Jan. 22 at the Mesteth family residence, Cheyenne Creek, S.D..
The funeral was held at Jan. 23 at the Mesteth family residence.
Arrangements were handled by the Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge.

Copyright 2008 The Circle News. All rights reserved. The Circle New is dedicated to presenting news from a Native American perspective, while granting an equal opportunity to community voices. Editorials and articles are the sole responsibility of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion, attitude, or philosophy of The Circle or the corporation. The Circle does not endorse any product or service accepted as advertising. The Circle reserves the right to reject any advertising, material, or letters submitted for publication. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE PUBLISHER.West7th**